The most common mistake any company or individual can make when venturing out on a new website project is to assume that design is everything. I can assure you that your website’s design on its own is not what will make you successful.

A quality and professional web development service is what will affect the success of your site and its online objectives. High standards (above industry) are developed for a reason, and that is to ensure the product and service you receive is of paramount quality and to a professional level, so that your website will function as intended and provide the right return on investment.

Too many businesses that are relying on the success of their website to help drive their business will bypass the crucial step of dealing with a professional development company based on price.

In this article I will reveal 10 tips to choose the right development company and how it will better your project’s success.

10 Tips to Choose the Right Web Development Company

Track Record – Choose a company that has an established track record. Generally a web company that has more than 15+ websites that they have designed or developed in-house with case studies to show their achievements. Any qualifications or awards won will also help establish this.

Methodology – Ensure your chosen company has a strong web development methodology or process. This means that when your chosen company develops your website you can track the progress of your project and ensure all key quality standards are covered.

Usability – Design does play a heavy role in the development of your web project. Ensure the company you choose has strong visitor usability and user-friendly interaction knowledge. Usability is how visitors will interact with your website and how effectively they reach your end goal.

Development Team – The company you choose should have an in-house development team. Don’t use a company that is going to send your project work off to another country or other out-sourced web companies. You don’t want to be chasing an invisible rabbit down a hole should things be affected by an unforeseen event.

Design Team – Your web company ideally should have an in-house design team, unless you are dealing with another individual or company for design. This tip relates to tip 3, if your web company has a designer in-house this will better the success of the project as the development will mirror the design better and its objectives.

SEO – Choose a web development company that has an understanding of search engine optimization. Another important factor to any web projects success is making sure the company you deal with knows about SEO and how it will affect your website.

Social Media – Social media is a new form of marketing and can drive great results. Dealing with a web developer that understands this can help you drive better traffic and alternative forms of login.This tip applies to socially active websites and e-commerce based projects.

Content – Content is the biggest thing that pushes your website and draws in your visitors. Content will be the main thing that will sell your services or product, the company you deal with should have good development techniques to structure content effectively.

E-commerce – Choose a web development company that has e-commerce experience. E-commerce is fast becoming the biggest way to make money online, how your customers make payments is very important. Make sure you deal with a development company that can recommend and implement the best payment methods available.

Support – The most important tip to date, your development company must be able to support you as a customer and provide ongoing maintenance and service. Work with a company that is going to be around a year from the time you employ them, too many customers I have met have been left in limbo because the company or individual they were dealing with has gone bust or skipped the country to leave you in the middle of nowhere.

In summary there are a number of aspects to take into consideration before making your web developer choice. I am confident this article with the above 10 tips will help you qualify the best company to deal with for your new web project.

The majority of the 10 tips should already be covered by your chosen development company, but it does not hurt you to double-check. I highly recommend you ask your chosen company questions based on my 10 tips above, this will help establish them as the right business to deal with.

All successful web projects are a result of planning and evaluating, failing to plan and evaluate your development choices could mean failure of your website.

Choose wisely and approach everything smartly, remember if you put in the leg/foot work to start with, you will reap the benefits later.

Web development is a craft that includes many different technologies. However, at the core of it all the responsibility of the web developer is to ensure that the client gets a website that does exactly what he wants it to do. There is a huge difference between being a web developer and a web designer, although their roles do have some overlap, the web designer will rarely be involved with any of the actual code that makes up the web site.

1. Plan The Design And Functionality Of The Website

It usually takes a while before the web developer actually starts to write the code that makes up the web site. When you get the contract for a web project there is a lot of planning and analysis that needs to take place. Usually the customer requires the website to function in a certain way. It is up to the project manager and his development team to estimate how long this will take.

During this stage the web designer will most likely participate to make sure that his design works with the customers requirements. Indeed, the requirements will most likely include details about how the customer wants the web site to appear.

2. Create The Business Logic As Specified By The Customer

When the planning and analysis stage has been completed the web developer will start developing the website. This often includes working with both client side technologies such as HTML, Java Script and CSS and server side technologies such as PHP and.NET.

A good web developer needs to be proficient with many technologies. There is no such thing as a pure HTML developer!

Knowing which tools to use for each part of the web site is instrumental to the success of the project.

3. Implementing The Web Design

You might think that when the web developer is done developing the web site the web designer would start implementing the web site. Even though they often work together it is usually the web developer who is tasked with implementing the web design on the web site.

It is critical that the web designer and the web developer work together on this!

4. Testing, Testing, Testing

Testing is arguably the most important, and most often neglected, part of a web development project. If there are critical errors on the website when it is launched the customer is at risk of losing a lot of money and certainly a lot of credibility.

Having said that the web developer should not be responsible for testing the web site. It is critically important that it is tested by someone who has not been involved in the actual development of the web site.

Would you believe – These 4 stages often takes place at the same time. Iterative development has become increasingly popular, meaning that parts of the website will most likely be tested while other parts of the site is still in development.

Modern web development include many different tasks, but it all starts with the fundamentals.

Web Development process of a website is a series of steps which is generally completed via firms which develops websites professionally. This is both advised and followed, as web development and web designing needs a lot of technical knowledge as well as expertise for efficiency. But it doesn’t mean that you will be totally dependent on the web development firm for the whole process, you can plan ahead about the website. Get the rough designs in shape so that you are able to convey exactly what you want.

Here are a few tips to help you design your website before the actual web development.

Firstly, know what you want, a structure of website should be clear in your mind so that you can efficiently communicate the same to the web development team that is going to work on the project. This includes both design and functionality of the website. Web designing can be done with as much creativity and originality that you can possibly imagine in your mind. Original and positive ideas always click with the audience, copied ideas can be easily recognized and it will cause a negative publicity about your website. That is why you should know what you want.

Secondly, you may visit numerous websites to get an understanding of all that is possible with your designs and functionality, but this should be limited to generation of understanding on how the web works. Taking ideas from already established websites is always a bad idea. Your website should have a unique quotient, which will be the reason your customers will visit it repeatedly. Web development majorly deals with the functionality of the website and it can be used to integrate different functionality in the website. These will change the feel of the website, and this could be the unique quotient that has been mentioned above.

While making a plan on the website designing, you also need to think about the theme of the whole website. The theme should preferably be relevant to the services/product that your company is dealing. Even otherwise the theme creates an elegance and beauty in the site when efficiently produced through web designing procedures. Nothing too illustrious or dazzling will work to attract customers to visit the website repeatedly.

Also while deciding the theme to be implemented through web designing, the color combination should be considered as really important. The colors used throughout the website should not be too bright that they pinch the vision or too dull that you have to strain the eyes to read the content. Good web designing firms will always give you design portfolios to choose from and they can be a good source of selecting the theme and theme colors.

The content rules the web; you should prepare the content that will be put on the website. The content can be efficiently handled via a CMS or Content Management System, which can be developed by the firm which is doing the web development for your website. When dealing with huge amounts of content it is always advisable to get a CMS developed by the web development firm so that it is easier for you to manage the content throughout the website.

Lastly, don’t think about web development and web designing as different procedures, make your web development firm interact with you on daily basis while planning as well as development is taking place so that they understand exactly what you need and you understand exactly what is being produced for you. Get into the development process so that a clear understanding is developed in your mind about the product that is being developed for you.

Planning your website, before the actual development procedures are kick started by the web designing and web development firm, is as crucial the actual product development so get your game shoes on.